This article first appeared in the print edition of the February Hendersonian published Jan. 30.
In a prayer during church service on Jan. 21, Greater Norris Chapel Baptist Church Pastor Rev. Charles Johnson expressed gratitude to his congregation for the valleys they’ve had to tread through to get back to the House of the Lord one more Sunday.
The comment of “one more Sunday” is significant and in some ways encapsulates generations of Greater Norris Chapel congregants. This year—the 150th anniversary of the church—is a culmination of the church community all those years making it back to the church one more Sunday.
According to a historical account posted on the church’s website, in 1874 the “Rev. L.B. Evans and 44 members of the First Baptist Church decided it was time to leave the church in hopes they could begin their own. With letters of membership dismissal from the First Baptist Church and a few hundred dollars, their church came to be known as the Fourth Street Baptist Church in Henderson. Rev. Lewis Norris, who had remained in Henderson, became the pastor.”
This was the very beginning of Greater Norris Chapel Baptist Church 150 years ago. Recently, the Hendersonian met with several longtime church members, some who are serving on the church’s anniversary committee. They rehashed some anecdotes of the church’s more recent history.
Dorothy Morse, 79, remembers her first service at the church after she and her family had moved from Robards to Henderson.
The organ got the congregation ready, she said, and then the choir marched down the aisle singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty.”
“With that 16-year-old mind, that’s what I see,” she said.
She remembers the packed church and Rev. Austin Bell’s deep voice.
“He was a great leader,” she said of Bell, who was pastor at the church from 1950-1974.
Priscilla McClure, the church clerk and historian, remembers taking part in the Baptist Training Union, Youth Days and Sunday school, when as many as 200 children attended and classes competed against each others in “attendance battles.”
She said the elders when she was young brought them up right—“We came up under a good and strong legacy,” she said. “We’re here because we saw, because we learned.”
McClure recalled a conversation with pastor Wendell Gathings, Sr., who before he led the church told her he wasn’t going to be the pastor but was only helping until someone else could take over.
She told him he was going to be the pastor. “It’s not what you want,” she said she told him. “It’s what God wants.”
Gathings, who just died on Jan. 8, ended up leading the church from 1980 to 1999.
Victoria Brooks-Scott, who has been the pianist at the church for 54 years, is a part of the music ministry that has its own piece of history within the church. She’s one of four musicians who have handled the church’s music for about 100 years. Before her, Naomi Johnson, on piano, and Annabelle Anglin, on organ, were the main church musicians for dozens of years. About the time Scott started on piano at 12 years old, Tony Anglin began on organ, and they’ve been providing the music ever since.
“Not too many churches in the area can say their musicians have been with them for 50 years,” said Rev. Charles Johnson.
Deacon Walter Wilcox, the oldest deacon at the church, said he remembers the baptisms of yesteryear. Congregations of various churches would meet up for revivals. From the church where the revival was taking place, they walked downtown to the riverfront at Second Street, he said. The deacons went out into the water with a long stick to measure the water level, he said, before those to be baptized stepped in. There were people all over the wall looking over the river as new members were baptized, Wilcox said.
In 2022, the church began a three-year celebration, which will culminate this year, to mark its 150th anniversary. An anniversary committee has been planning the celebrations each year.
The first gathering in 2022 was a comedy slam at the Lumberyard Events Center when gospel comedian MattieJ performed. That performance was followed by a live band and dancing, said Gayle Johnson, who heads the anniversary committee (and is also the pastor’s wife).
Last year, the committee and church took on a project of recovering all the church pews, so now all are outfitted with padding on the seat and back and covered with red felt. There was also a church picnic at Burdette Park, and in December, the church held a Male Bliss Musical, Gayle Johnson said.
This year, the big celebration will be a gala at the Doubletree by Hilton next to the Ford Center in Evansville. The June 8 celebration will feature dinner, comedy—again by MattieJ—and dancing to the music of local musician E.J. Simmons and the Band, Gayle Johnson said, adding it’s an exciting time for the church.
“It’s a time to bring everybody together,” she said.
Lori Baker, 60, a member of the anniversary committee who was baptized in the church when she was 10, said the planning of the celebrations brought ups and downs but ultimately pulled members closer together.
“It’s given us the knowledge to grow spiritually,” she said.
Gayle Johnson said the church is also beginning to experience some growth in numbers, which is welcomed because initially after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, the congregation wasn’t as full as it had been.
“People didn’t come back when the doors opened up,” she said. “The last six or seven months, I think people are starting to come back.”
The pandemic, though, did bring about some positives for the church, including the showing of services on Facebook. Church leaders decided to hold services and air them online, which in the early days of the pandemic meant that the four or five choir members and musicians socially-distanced and sanitized in the church media room.
The online services caught on—not just locally but nationally. They say that people watch from California, Arizona, Missouri and Chicago.
Locally, though, the longevity and success of the church boils down to a community that has hung together generation after generation.
When church treasurer Deneen Johnson’s son was admitted to the hospital years back, she said, half the congregation was in his hospital room before he was life flighted to Louisville.
“We’re a praying church,” Deneen Johnson said. “There’s a reason God has us on this corner for 150 years. No matter what has gone on, we’ve always come back together to pray together.”
McClure concurs, saying the church is a family that prays together and stays together, despite any differences that may arise.
“We’re still here, we’re still sick, and we know where the healing is,” she said.
Pastors of Greater Norris Chapel Baptist Church 1874 to present (according to church records)
• Rev. L.B. Evans
• Rev. Lewis Norris
• Rev. Tobe Gardner 1885-1887
• Rev. L.S. Posey 1887-1889
• Rev. W.M. Martin 1889-1901
• Rev. Fisher 1901
• Rev. W.M. Underwood 1902-1904
• Rev. G.W. Dorsey 1904-1906
• Rev. L.B. Banks 1906-1910
• Rev. A.F. Fox 1910-1915
• Rev. J.R. Robinson 1915-1922
• Rev. C.E. Martin 1922-1929
• Rev. L.G. Easley 1929
• Rev. Erie Pullen 1937-1946
• Rev. Clifton Brown 1949
• Rev. Austin Bell 1950-1974
• Rev. Eddie Elijah Heard 1974-1977
• Rev. Austin Bell 1977-1978 (acting pastor)
• Rev. Rev. Jethro Hill 1978 (call rescinded)
• Rev. Joseph Gause 1978-1980
• Rev. Wendell L. Gathings 1980-1999
• Rev. Charles E. Johnson 2002-present
The following is a continuation of the church’s early history:
1879-The Fourth Street Baptist Church purchased a corner lot on First and Adams Street.
1884-The Fourth Street Baptist Church burned in 1884. Only three cushioned pulpit chairs were saved.
The same three pulpit chairs are in the church today, say the members of the anniversary committee.
After the fire, members of the church worshipped in Turner’s Woods by candlelight and then in various member’s homes until they found a new place of worship—the Old Pollard building on First and Green Street.
1885-Shortly after their move to the Old Pollard Building, a new pastor was called to serve, Rev. Tobe Gardner. Rev. Gardner stayed as pastor from 1885-1887.
1887-The present ground that Greater Norris Chapel Baptist Church now stands on was purchased for $80.00.
To read more of the timeline about the church’s history, including its first incarnation as the African Baptist Church when congregants worshipped in the basement of the First Baptist Church on the corner of Elm and Center streets, go to https://gncbc.org/about-us/.
